Demystifying the ITU's Role in Internet Governance

Jan. 17, 2013, 8:27 a.m.
Michela Menting , Practice Director

The embers of the heated WCIT ITR negotiation last month have barely cooled and yet they are being fanned once more with anti-ITU sentiment. I came across the De-fund the ITU campaign, accompanied by a US
petition
to reduce USG direct funding of the ITU from $11M to $22k. Far be it from me to deny William EW’s right to petition his government, or the US’s to adjust funding as it sees fit, but some of the statements in his campaign’s
website
are so misguided that US readers would be ill-advised to sign this petition without doing some further research into the allegations.

I’ll not attempt to debunk the erroneous statements since Professor Milton Mueller gives a superb account of why WCIT was derailed in his IPG blog article on
ITU Phobia
. A well-balanced and insightful piece, the arguments put forward by Professor Mueller certainly provide a much clearer explanation of the real powers of the ITU and why its supposed ‘take-over of the internet’ is not only impossible, but really quite ridiculous.